San Francisco. . .The
U.S. Bureau of Land Management violated its agreement to protect the threatened
desert tortoise, according to a court decision issued this week in a contempt
hearing filed by Earthjustice on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity,
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), and the Sierra
Club. U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup declared that the agency
violated, "the letter, the spirit, and everything about this whole
process" when it failed to remove cattle from the tortoise's designated
habitat.

BLM had agreed in
a lawsuit settlement last fall to have cattle moved from 500,000 acres
of federal land by March 1 to protect desert tortoise populations emerging
from their winter burrows, but then made no effort to do so. Last month
the Center for Biological Diversity, PEER and the Sierra Club, the plaintiffs
in the original suit, filed a contempt-of-court motion against BLM on
the grounds that the agency had failed to implement the protections outlined
in the consent decree.

Judge Alsup appeared
upset that the same agency that had heartily promised to protect the tortoise
in mid-January changed course by February. "I think this has something
to do with the change of administrations," Alsup said in a court
transcript, " I think that is all that's going on here, and that's
not the way the government should be working." He gave BLM two weeks
to either come up with a plan for compliance or be held in contempt of
court.

Overgrazing in the
arid Southwest has contributed to the decline of the desert tortoise as
livestock trample the animals' burrows and eat the vegetation tortoises
rely on as their principal food source.

"Secretary Gale
Norton is living down to the low expectations that she will enforce environmental
laws only when forced to," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch.
"BLM's failure to follow the consent decree may be a signal that
dereliction of duty will become the signature style of resource protection
under this Department of Interior."

"Until now, BLM
has been trying to stall this process," stated the Center for Biological
Diversity's Daniel Patterson. "I am now confident that we will see
the agreement fully implemented within the mandated two weeks."

"It is unfortunate
that the agency decided to disregard the original agreement," said
Earthjustice Staff Attorney Jay Tutchton, "The court had no choice
but to enforce its order."